The Man Who Knew: The Life and Times of Alan Greenspan

Sebastian Mallaby's magisterial biography of Alan Greenspan, the product of over five years of research based on untrammeled access to his subject and his closest professional and personal intimates, brings into vivid focus the mysterious point where the government and the economy meet. To understand Greenspan's story is to see the economic and political landscape of the last 30 years - and the presidency, from Reagan to George W. Bush - in a whole new light.

Den of Thieves

Pulitzer Prize winner James B. Stewart shows for the first time how four of the biggest names on Wall Street - Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky, Martin Siegel, and Dennis Levine - created the greatest insider-trading ring in financial history and almost walked away with billions - until a team of downtrodden detectives triumphed over some of America's most expensive lawyers to bring this powerful quartet to justice.

American Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses S. Grant

A major new biography of the Civil War general and American president, by the author of the New York Times bestseller A. Lincoln. The dramatic story of one of America's greatest and most misunderstood military leaders and presidents, this is a major new interpretation of Ulysses S. Grant. Based on seven years of research with primary documents, some of them never tapped before, this is destined to become the Grant biography of our times.

No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller

No One Would Listen is the exclusive story of the Harry Markopolos-lead investigation into Bernie Madoff and his $65 billion Ponzi scheme. While a lot has been written about Madoff's scam, few actually know how Markopolos and his team - affectionately called "the Fox Hounds" by Markopolos himself - uncovered what Madoff was doing years before this financial disaster reached its pinnacle. Unfortunately, no one listened, until the damage of the world's largest financial fraud ever was irreversible.

How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything: Tales from the Pentagon

Once, war was a temporary state of affairs - a violent but brief interlude between times of peace. Today America's wars are everywhere and forever: Our enemies change constantly and rarely wear uniforms, and virtually anything can become a weapon. As war expands, so does the role of the US military. Today military personnel don't just "kill people and break stuff". Instead they analyze computer code, train Afghan judges, build Ebola isolation wards, eavesdrop on electronic communications, develop soap operas, and patrol for pirates.

Circle of Greed: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of America's Most Feared and Loathed Lawyer

Circle of Greed is the epic story of the rise and fall of Bill Lerach, once the leading class action lawyer in America and now a convicted felon. For more than two decades, Lerach threatened, shook down and sued top Fortune 500 companies, including Disney, Apple, Time Warner, and most famously, Enron. Now, the man who brought corporate moguls to their knees has fallen prey to the same corrupt impulses of his enemies, and is paying the price by serving time in federal prison.

American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst

Jeffrey Toobin has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1993 and is the senior legal analyst for CNN. In 2000 he received an Emmy Award for his coverage of the Elian Gonzalez case. He is the author of The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court, which spent more than four months on the New York Times best seller list. Before joining The New Yorker, Toobin served as an assistant United States attorney in Brooklyn, New York. He lives in Manhattan.

Conspiracy of Fools: A True Story

Say the name 'Enron' and most people believe they've heard all about the story that imperiled a presidency, destroyed a marketplace, and changed Washington and Wall Street forever. But in the hands of Kurt Eichenwald, the players we think we know and the business practices we think have been exposed are transformed into entirely new, and entirely gripping, material.

Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires

Genovese, Gambino, Bonnano, Colombo, and Lucchese. For decades these Five Families ruled New York and built the American Mafia (or Cosa Nostra) into an underworld empire. Today, the Mafia is an endangered species, battered and beleaguered by aggressive investigators, incompetent leadership, betrayals, and generational changes that produced violent, unreliable leaders and recruits.

Over the past three years, the notorious @GSElevator Twitter feed has offered a hilarious, shamelessly voyeuristic look into the real world of international finance. Hundreds of thousands followed the account, Goldman Sachs launched an internal investigation, and when the true identity of the man behind it all was revealed, it created a national media sensation - but that's only part of the story.

The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government

An explosive, headline-making portrait of Allen Dulles, the man who transformed the CIA into the most powerful - and secretive - colossus in Washington, from the founder of Salon.com and author of the New York Times best seller Brothers.

The Madoff Chronicles: Inside the Secret World of Bernie and Ruth

The collapse of Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme led to the instant evaporation of $65 billion of wealth. The effects of Madoff's brazen fraud were felt most closely in New York and Palm Beach but the story was, and continues to be, front page news across the country.

The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson

The definitive account of the O. J. Simpson trial, The Run of His Life is a prodigious feat of reporting that could have been written only by the foremost legal journalist of our time. First published less than a year after the infamous verdict, Jeffrey Toobin's nonfiction masterpiece tells the whole story, from the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman to the ruthless gamesmanship behind the scenes of "the trial of the century".

Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist

Starting from scratch, simply by picking stocks and companies for investment, Warren Buffett amassed one of the epochal fortunes of the twentieth century - an astounding net worth of $10 billion and counting. His awesome investment record has made him a cult figure popularly known for his seeming contradictions: a billionaire who has a modest lifestyle, a phenomenally successful investor who eschews the revolving-door trading of modern Wall Street, a brilliant dealmaker who cultivates a homespun aura.

The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds

Forty years ago Israeli psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky wrote a series of breathtakingly original studies undoing our assumptions about the decision-making process. Their papers showed the ways in which the human mind erred systematically when forced to make judgments about uncertain situations. Their work created the field of behavioral economics, revolutionized Big Data studies, advanced evidence-based medicine, led to a new approach to government regulation, and made Michael Lewis' work possible.

Bush

In Bush, Jean Edward Smith demonstrates that it was not Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, or Condoleezza Rice, but President Bush himself who took personal control of foreign policy. Bush drew on his deep religious conviction that important foreign-policy decisions were simply a matter of good versus evil. Domestically, he overreacted to 9/11 and endangered Americans' civil liberties.

The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914

The Sleepwalkers is historian Christopher Clark's riveting account of the explosive beginnings of World War I. Drawing on new scholarship, Clark offers a fresh look at World War I, focusing not on the battles and atrocities of the war itself but on the complex events and relationships that led a group of well-meaning leaders into brutal conflict.

Silent Witness: The Karla Brown Murder Case (Onyx)

An account of the murder of Karla Brown describes how, after years of investigations, a prosecutor's brilliant courtroom strategies won a conviction against a long-time loser with a vicious hatred of women.

Face-to-face with some of America's most terrifying killers, FBI veteran and ex-Army CID colonel Robert Ressler learned from them how to identify the unknown monsters who walk among us - and put them behind bars. Now the man who coined the phrase "serial killer" and advised Thomas Harris on The Silence of the Lambs shows how he has tracked down some of the nation's most brutal murderers. Join Ressler as he takes you on the hunt for America's most dangerous psychopaths. It is a terrifying journey you will not forget.

The Romanovs: 1613-1918

This is the intimate story of 20 tsars and tsarinas, some touched by genius, some by madness, but all inspired by holy autocracy and imperial ambition. Simon Sebag Montefiore's gripping chronicle reveals their secret world of unlimited power and ruthless empire building, overshadowed by palace conspiracy, family rivalries, sexual decadence, and wild extravagance, with a global cast of adventurers, courtesans, revolutionaries, and poets, from Ivan the Terrible to Tolstoy and Pushkin.

Salt of the Earth

Joe Gere said he died on the afternoon his 12-year-old daughter Brenda disappeared. It was left to Brenda's mother Elaine to sustain her stricken family, search for her missing child, and pressure the authorities for justice. From the first minutes of the investigation, suspicion fell on Michael Kay Green, a steroid-abusing "Mr. Universe" hopeful, but there was no proof of a crime, leaving police and prosecutors stymied. Tips and sightings poured in as lawmen and volunteers combed the Cascades forest.

Crash of the Titans: Greed, Hubris, the Fall of Merrill Lynch and the Near-Collapse of Bank of America

With one notable exception, the firms that make up what we know as Wall Street have always been part of an inbred, insular culture that most people only vaguely understand. The exception was Merrill Lynch, a firm that revolutionized the stock market by bringing Wall Street to Main Street. Merrill Lynch was an icon. Its sudden decline, collapse, and sale to Bank of America was a shock. How did it happen? Why did it happen?

A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton

Carl Bernstein's stunning portrait of Hillary Rodham Clinton shows us, as nothing else has, the true trajectory of her life and career, with its zigzag bursts of risks taken and safety sought. Marshaling all the skills and energy that propelled his history-making Pulitzer Prize reporting on Watergate, Bernstein gives us the most detailed, sophisticated, comprehensive, and revealing account of Hilary Rodham Clinton yet.

Publisher's Summary

Best-selling author James B. Stewart's newsbreaking investigation of our era's most high-profile perjurers, revealing the alarming extent of this national epidemic.

Our system of justice rests on a simple proposition: that witnesses will raise their hands and tell the truth. In Tangled Webs, James B. Stewart reveals in vivid detail the consequences of the perjury epidemic that has swept our country, undermining the very foundation of our courts.With many prosecutors, investigators, and participants speaking for the first time, Tangled Webs goes behind the scene of the trials of media and homemaking entrepreneur Martha Stewart; top White House political adviser Lewis "Scooter" Libby; home-run king Barry Bonds; and Wall Street money manager Bernard Madoff.

The saga of Martha Stewart's conviction captured the nation, but until now no one has answered the most basic question: Why would Stewart risk prison, put her entire empire in jeopardy, and lie repeatedly to government investigators to save a few hundred thousand dollars in stock gains? Moreover, how exactly was the notoriously meticulous Stewart brought down?

Drawing on the accounts of then-deputy attorney general James Comey and U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, Stewart sheds new light on the Libby investigation, making clear how far into the White House the Valerie Plame CIA scandal extended, and why Libby took the fall.

In San Francisco, Giants home-run king Barry Bonds faces trial due to his testimony before a grand jury investigating the use of illegal steroids in sports. Bonds was warned explicitly that the only crime he faced was perjury. Stewart unlocks the story behind the mounting evidence that he nonetheless lied under oath.

Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme is infamous, but less well known is how he eluded detection for so long in the face of repeated investigations. Of the four he is the only one who has admitted to lying.The perjury outbreak is symptomatic of a broader breakdown of ethics in American life. It isn't just the judicial system that relies on an honor code: Academia, business, medicine, and government all depend on it. Tangled Webs explores the age-old tensions between greed and justice, self-interest and public interest, loyalty and duty. At a time when Americans seem hungry for moral leadership and clarity, Tangled Webs reaffirms the importance of truth.

Lying has become so common place in American life and business that we don't think of it as wrong until some one gets caught and charged with a crime. The lie itself is not in itself so bad but the cover up that follows is often worse than the original lie.The lengths these wealthy people have gone to to save what amounted to a fraction of their overall wealth and put their freedom and empires on the line and risked it all out of a sense of entitlement and that is what it is all about an underlaying sense of entitlement that makes lying alright.

Stewart walks us through several high profile cases involving, amongst other things, perjury. The Martha Stewart and Bernie Madoff segments were particularly interesting, in large part due to the tremendous detail that was included. Narration was first rate.

The author knows how to tell a non-fiction story so that it unfolds with the suspense of fiction. Characters are lucidly drawn, facts presented to support the narrative, and the moral of the story elucidated. These are all stories we followed in the press, but no newspaper account included the amazing detail (never tedious) and the day by day snippets never contributed to the spellbinding narratives one gets here. Very competently read. Easy to segment with the four self-contained stories.

In “Tangled Webs: How False Statements Are Undermining America: From Martha Stewart to Bernie Madoff,” James B. Stewart begins with this premise: perjury is a national epidemic and a review of four of our highest profiled perjurers: Martha Stewart, Scooter Libby, Barry Bonds (and Marion Jones and others) and the king of them all, Bernie Madoff, may provide insight into why everyone else does it so freely. Maybe. Probably not. Forget the theme, or the reason, or the motivation, this is a book you simply cannot put down. Stewart’s great skill is the ability to take these “tangled webs” and bring them into sharp focus leaving the reader walking through this distempered world with intimacy unrivaled. He is a quote machine providing extended reference to transcripts, documents, interviews. When they sing, they really sing, and usually lie then, too. Despite his under-theme that a failure to fully prosecute encourages more and damaging the very fabric of our society, everyone here, save Bonds, suffered consequences that overwhelmed what would have resulted had they told the truth: Martha Steward lost nearly $1 billion of net worth. As they say, with a “b.” (Poor thing, she is down to her last $130,000,000.00-still and all.) All to save about $45,000. But then, she has producers box up food she cooks on shows to take home with her. And for Martha, rules are for other people, for suckers. And don’t cross her. Scooter went to prison and his Commander in Chief, to the great anger of the prince of darkness himself, Mr. Cheney, refused to grant pardon and thereby, in the words of Cheney, “left a soldier on the field.” Libby is the one guy I most wonder about. His lies did little for him (except to save his job and reputation once he started) and he wasn’t even the guy who leaked Plame to Novak (the unpunished Rove and Armitage did). But he was the guy who learned who about Plame’s identity directly from Cheney (which he denied) who was mad as hell about the state of the Union and Plame’s husband’s allegations that Cheney buried the truth about yellow-cake uranium. Libby was loyal. The real story of Madoff is not in his deception (catastrophic) but in the SEC’s colossal failure to uncover it. Rarely has there been so much over-looked perjury. Madoff was not talented. He could not keep his stories straight and lied to the same people. The SEC was lazy and uninspired. They cared more about a closed investigation than uncovering a crime. Remarkably, they never even asked who was on the other side of all these trades or made a single call to see if any trades had even happened. They hadn’t. Had they made one call, his scheme would have collapsed at a time when he managed $20 billion. When he called the FBI to confess (the SEC never caught him), that number was $65 billion. Another $45 billion lost all because the regulators simply did not care. This is a great work for all those who hear the politicians roar that government regulators are killing us. Wow. No regulation has ever preceded bad behavior. It responds to it. Take it away and the Bernie’s thrive like weeds. So do the Kochs. Little wonder they are selling you regulation is bad baloney. Which leaves us with Bonds, and Jones, and the rest of the BALCO steroid legion. Bonds is really a stunning guy. No one ever liked him. He doesn’t like himself. Or anyone else. His father was famous and he was talented. Everyone else can go to hell. Everyone. And yet, his personal guy, Anderson, the man who brought him the drugs, refused to testify, went to jail, still is silent, life ruined. And Barry, for all that so-called loyalty, doesn’t speak to him. This is a work that reveals and reveals. Tell the truth.